I love doing fillers! Filling in a huge gap with my enormous wedge gives me an enormous sense of well being!
For those few of you who have bought and enjoyed the first issue of the Steve & Bob comic, you would have seen two strips which were made specifically for the issue so that there wouldn’t be any gaps in the pages.
Well, I’ve been working on issue two which will also be in black and white and has a whopping (quickly re-counts) seven new strips made JUST for fillers and one strip which I personally banned because it was extremely controversial for the time. Well, I had written it before there was all the scandal in the news involving British (or American, I forget) troops in Iraq making prisoners form pyramids, naked and making them bow before them. This strip... has a similar theme which was COMPLETELY COINCIDENTAL!
Also, it turns out that as I was making the last of the filler strips, I came home and discovered that I didn’t actually need to make that last filler because, well, I forgot to make one......
Urg...
So, this new ish is going to miss out on one of the old strips, but it’s a pretty dull one and the new one has the Green Lantern in it, so all is good.
There’s also more of Fiona, the bears, two extra strips of Steve fighting the bears, karaoke and baps.
If that hasn’t sold it, well, hrm, I’ll leave that sentence there and walk away from it.
I’ve had loads of fun converting the strips into black and white and in some cases it works really well as it looks very noir in places were it works really, stupidly well!
And so it came to pass, the newsies has ended, and today’s word is officially: “Baps”
Try and get that into a casual sentence today, whether you’re with friends or in a business meeting, just casually say... “Baps”

As well as updating the site so it now has FOUR Christmas skins, that’s FOURskins, the Downloads page has been updated for the first time since, well, ever. Click on over to get some freebie mobile wallpapers which will have a Christmassy feel or a spooky feel!
DO IT! NOW! SHNELL!

Last night was the Christmas doo for work (which is where I am temping at the moment, but I used to work there for two years before the surgery) and it was fantastic! Innuendo was rife in the room! We did a cheers to buggery, talked about a man putting a glass tube thing in an unmentionable place in his body and have it shatter and I won possibly the best prizes in the raffle!
Hopefully Ash will have put the drunken pictures of us all on facebook by now, (whose comic I have to plug coz it’s fantastic for all things combustible) and I kindda felt like I connected to all the people who I haven’t really managed to talk to properly since I started.
It was a great night and I’ve officially discovered a new love of Sambuca, so I can now welcome a whole new world of alcoholism to my life now. Yay!
Also, just a quick hello to Graeme who really made me laugh today. Cheers dude!

Can I just say how utterly chuffed I am that Steve & Bob has finally reached the big 10,000 mark on the counter! This counter has been running ever since I bought the URL for the site AND went to Bravenet to get my free counter for the site.
In a time of olde, Steve and Bob used to be part of a website called Leilo Rising. But after about 30 or so strips, I started my own geocities website. The grey and bland S&B site was replaced (quite drastically) by a bright yellow and green site.
S&B got a lot of hits in Geocities (which I think was thanks to all the robots and spambots that cruised Geocities) and it is a shame that everything got wiped from there. Even the amazing Guestbook which had over twenty entries all from different people (and even more from spambots).
Geocities was fun and it was great having the freedom to do what I liked, but the lure of having a ‘stevebob.com’ was too overwhelming, it HAD to be mine. So I bought the URL, got a whole lot of webspace and am rarely plagued by the monstrous spambots!
So this is a big thank you to all the people who have visited since I bought the URL. Ten Thousand hits is amazing and it’s even more amazing when you consider that the site is still getting more even though I haven’t added a strip since February!
So, thank you!
Also, in case you were wondering why there’s a big picture of some dude on this newsies, it’s because of Ash. He works in FP and is pretty mental, but he’s also a brilliant comic artist and did this doodle of me looking confused which, for those who know me, is a constant reoccurrence.
Feel free to visit his and his mates website/blog at Brutal Comics and leave comments on your favourite strips there. If you like metal, precious items burning to the embers of their soul until flecks of ash could be found in the marrow of the remains of their victim’s souls or Pokémon, then it’s just for you!

It’s strange, Christmas always brings a strange sense of dread every year but this year has been different.
Whether it’s having the family over or getting presents for people and they not liking them, there’s always something to dread but it’s very strange this year. Anyone who knows me knows that earlier in the year I had an operation to get a rather sizable tumour removed from my neck and even though the risk wasn’t huge, there was an overwhelming sense of doom and loneliness with this tumour. It was, quite literally life threatening.
But then, strangely enough, I lived. Even stranger was that life carried on as normal. But how could it be normal after such a big ordeal? Then, quite as swift as you like, Christmas appeared and something struck me. I get to see another Christmas.
It’s a very odd feeling when you prepare yourself for the worst and then it doesn’t come. Suddenly, this time of the year is something to look forward to. It’s the Christmas that didn’t get away.

For the first time in many a year, that I have no idea what the year will bring. There are no immediate Steve & Bob Strips that have to be released, so schedules to maintain, nought really. I don’t really have anything planned other than the UK Mini & Web Comic Thing, issue two of Steve & Bob and Elemental Micah. Everything else is a sheer mystery.
By Joe I think I shall enjoy it! And you too! Don’t plan things, planning’s boring. Unless it’s conventions, then I highly stress that you need to plan ahead for that. You don’t want to be sitting there like a plum, trying to sell prints while wearing your Steve & Bob T-shirt while your hair looks like you’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge.
Just saying...
HAPPY NEW YEARS!

inally, no. Or yes... Hang on...

Well, that's a long answer actually.

Steve was first created in 1997 as part of a Design and Technology project to design bookmarks for primary school kids. I wanted to put Bob on the back burner since I was doing my GCSEs and really needed to do something more complex to get better grades for it. So ideas, obsessions and influences at the time mingled together.
There was Rik Mayall from a British show called Bottom who always tucked his shirt in his overly large pants (something Steve did a lot back then).
Ren and Stimpy which was huge at the time, yet still seemed oddly timeless. It was quite a novel idea for me to have characters who didn't have correct limbs (thus the curve you often see with Steve's arm when he's relaxing and his bulging eyes).
And Pablo Picasso. Once I realised what he was doing with his weird drawings, I loved them. The reason noses were shown sideways was because that is when they are at their most flattering. He'd take all different bits of anatomy and move and shape them so they'd look as beautiful as they can in the two dimensional world. Given Steve's origins as a Bookmark character, it made sense to make him look like he's been squashed as though he's been stuck in this book for far too long. But, of course, being stuck in a book has brought out the best in him!

Then in 2004, it seemed like a good idea to bring him back for a comic. Now this is why I originally said no. I wanted to create the smartest creature alive, so I made him a philosopher. He doesn't need much in life to make him happy and the burden of existence doesn't eat away at him. He's your typical average Joe who suddenly and abruptly goes through his mid-life crisis. Then he takes a lot of his silliness from me. No one really hates Steve, because he's too sweet and sincere to hate. Also like me, he's completely unintimidating while still having his vices with alcohol (mine is food) and having a troubled past with his family, it's quite scary how much like me he is.
And of course, let's not forget the lethargy! Dear me, chapter 27 is all about how I kept falling asleep on the tube on the way to work! I suppose I'll get started on 28 when I start feeling a bit more awake!

Do you believe in Karma?
The other day, I was rifling through facebook when I saw the cutest picture of a friend of mine who had a puppy sleeping on his chest. He also had a bit of a broken nose in that picture, so I posted a message along the lines of, “You haz zits lolls!”
Needless to say, he was most displeased.
The other day, as though the heavens had heard my playful insult, they besmirched me with a glorious zit on my cheek. Now being the type that picks everything, I picked it so it would go away.
It just got bigger.
Not only that, it’s now seeping bits of blood, ooze and goo!
This is not a good look, but still, it’s an impressive spot! I just got a email from the astronauts at the Hubble Satellite that they thought it might have been a Dalek invasion. AGAIN!
So, just to clarify, I have a zit. Look at it...
LooooooooK!!!

Hey Groovy Guys and Funky Chicks! Just wanted to say I've finally finished making the code for my Sister's website. She's a photographer and she takes a lot of burlesque photographs, so if knickers, corsets and bras are your thing, then head over there and give her lots of hits.
Also, she doesn't know this (and probably never will if you're all good boys and girls) but there is actually a very secret Easter Egg on the site. If you manage to find it, then chances are your deduction skills are amazing and you know your webdesigning! Also, you'll see a little doodle I may have done.......
http://www.melanienicol.co.uk for the main site.
http://www.melanienicol.co.uk/thumb.html for the Gallery
http://? What could be the mystery page?
I'm not giving it away that easily!

Yes, so, I've started making a portfolio based on my artwork and webdesigning. Something for potential employers to see.
It's not finished yet as the links don't go anywhere as I haven't created pages for them yet, but the main page is finished. The buttons have mouse over images and the logo on the top left is animated.
Please go have a look and let me know what you think.
Cheers!

Portfolio done. AT LAST!
Now the super professional *cough* portfolio is online and has the rather impressive new url of...

http://www.michaelgeorgiou.com

See what I did there? It's got my name! It's got my name AND it's a dot com! Oooh, I'm so proud and slightly knackered. Self publicity is exhausting and making this site has be hard.
But I think it's been worth the effort.
Win!

Today I recieved yet another massive package!
No, it's not gay innuendo gone wrong, it's the second issue of Steve & Bob comic book!
It will be avalible to buy online as of today via the Store button, clicking on this link, or clicking on the picture to the left there.
Please don't let the fact that I've recently been made redundant encourage your purchasing. Nor that fact that I'm currently not getting any income. Or the fact that it's only £3.50 online (but will be a tad cheaper at the UK Web and Mini Comic Exhibition Thing this March.)
Buy it for the love of Steve & Bob and not for the increacing poverty being thrust upon your dear writer slash artist.
Especially with seven bonus strips, one previously banned strip, a very funny "Previously in Steve & Bob" page, an outro page with never seen before doodle of Steve in prison with Bob or a very detailed description of the comic at the back of the comic book with 75 of the original strips revamped.
(Urg, I'm getting Sales Manitus)